Comments on: 584: Weekly Position Paper #4: Problematizing Empathy

By: ML Sugie

ML Sugie — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 06:37:46 +0000

Briefly: Empathy and sympathy seem to be important components of moral reasoning in that they may provide important evidence and data for us to act on, i.e. we shouldn’t commit rape because we can empathize (be “in feeling”) with survivors of rape, and those are not feelings we ought to have.

I think most people don’t fully empathize, or as you say don’t empathize except to roll a “moral check” against a particular action. We just place ourselves – minds and all – in a particular situation, roll our 20-sided empathy dice, and see if we come up with the same feeling or emotion. If not, we “can’t empathize” with someone’s particular response or belief in something. I don’t think most of us ever exert the effort to actually get to the place where we could be “in feeling” with someone, as that would require knowing so much more about someone’s life and the particulars about a situation than I think we have energy for.

Or empathy is used in the banal sense, i.e. “I feel what you feel, but I don’t care and will not act on that understanding.” Perhaps empathy is simply misused, mislabeled, and misapplied in most cases – like any component of moral reasoning that is used independently.

See the SEP articles on empathy and moral reasoning.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:19:18 +0000

Thanks, Bill! I’ll definitely check these out!

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:31:52 +0000

Great post. This is an issue I’ve been thinking about A LOT lately. Amy Shuman’s ‘Other People’s Stories’ is a great book for thinking through the ethics of empathy. She’s a folklorist and draws on many, many kinds of stories and experiences and also many, many kinds of differences. Very useful.

Closer to composition studies, see Matthew Newcomb’s piece from JAC in 2007 and Kristie Fleckenstein’s response to him in the subsequent issue. They talk about ways for empathy to accomplish some of the work of materiality.

But I like your take on things–the idea that turning the lens on oneself might be more productive. Smart stuff

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:25:32 +0000

Thanks, Nels and Dennis. I’ll check out that book!

By: Dennis

Dennis — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:15:47 +0000

Nicely done. Good question.

By: Nels

Nels — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:38:05 +0000

This book really got me thinking about empathy a few years ago. Different field, but if you are interested, it’s thought-provoking. And you’re right about the flattening of difference.

http://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Practice-Medicine-Beyond-Scalpel/dp/0300066708/